It’s been a while and I thought I’d make a change to my old style of just posting excerpts from whatever story I happen to be working on. Blogs are supposed to be more about the person, not just what they do.

I’m not very good at being a normal person though, so this is gonna take some getting used to.

Well, here goes…

I’ve been writing for a good number of years now, around five or six of which have been spent writing a novel. Said novel went through a few iterations before I finally settled on what I wanted and, eventually, I finished writing it – the feeling was fantastic. But the idea of editing it just made me bury my head in the sand, so it sits unedited to this day. I kept telling myself I’d go back to it, but other ideas would come along and I’d start writing those instead, and now it’s got to the point where other ideas mean that huge changes need to be made to the story, for it to tie into what I have planned next.

I even started to wonder if being a writer was really who I am, really what I want to do. Often I’d question myself because (and I realise how silly this is now) so-called experts/professionals on social media would say things like, “if you don’t write every day, you aren’t a writer,” or something to that effect. It got me down, so much so that I questioned my own future, and nobody worth anything would cause someone to think like that.

So, I took a look inside myself (not literally, that would be decidedly fatal) and I realised that I’m in a job that I’ve grown to hate, I’d taken to spending most of my time alone and would even refuse to go out with friends, because I’m no good at talking to people and I didn’t want my friends to see that.

Ask me to write a conversation between fictional characters and I can write pages of dialogue, to a reasonably decent and realistic standard. Ask me to have a conversation with real people? Words fail me.

What can I say? I’m a writer, not a talker.

Having said all that, I’m taking steps to improve things. I’ve given myself six months to leave my current job and find a way into the writing career I want. I’m going to genuinely make changes to the novel and, once ready, I’ll edit it or at least release it to beta readers.

I’ve even started reviewing games with a view to a career in games journalism, and now have around ten published reviews online.

Hell, I’m also actively being more social with friends and colleagues.